August 27, 2014

Hey, wait– this isn’t an AFR comic! Nope, it’s the start of something new, but don’t worry, your regularly scheduled silly comics will continue every Saturday. Get the scoop here.

Korina and Elice Whitfeld lived with their mother, Esma Whitfeld, in the last cottage on the Stormwind road out of Goldshire village, a bare half mile from the Stromwind gates. They had few visitors, although the girls were well known in the village and their mother went up to the city twice a week to sell their cheese in the market. The family was an ordinary one, and if, at the ages of seventeen and fifteen, Korina and Elice were not quite ready to grow up yet, that was ordinary too. After the night of their mother’s disappearance, however, the sisters would have a lot of growing up to do and very little time to do it.

One of the few people who did visit the Whitfeld cottage was Brother Padwell, the village priest, and on that day he paid a visit to Esma for an all too familiar reason. Esma opened the door to a knock and found Brother Padwell looking stern and leading both of her daughters. Korina looked sullen and struggled at the firm grasp Padwell had on the shoulder of her jerkin. The younger, Elice, wore her usual look of disapproval and made sure to keep the edges of her white acolyte’s robe away from Korina’s scruffy clothes.

An orc attack. A lost mother. Two sisters, who love and hate each other as only sisters can, alone against unknown perils. Together, they decide to face the danger to find their mother and bring her home. This is how heroes are made.

Today I begin something new on this site: Father’s Shield, a story about the people who will grow up to be the heroes of Azeroth, but who aren’t yet. This is a departure, a more serious story and not connected to the AFR comics or their characters. Instead we will follow Korina and Elice Whitfeld, a couple of poor village girls from Elwynn Forest, as they struggle against the wilderness, demon-magic, and their own self-doubts to rescue their mother from the hands of a deadly enemy.

The story will appear in eight chapters, posted one a week on Wednesday, starting today. You can follow along on the Father’s Shield page, too.